


almost me, almost you

by crownsandbirds



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Burnout Syndrome, Emotional Manipulation, Multi, Psychological Torture, Psychosis, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Will add tags as I go, cheadle is a med student after graduating law school, ging is......somewhere, mizai is doing law practice, paris is a med student except hes 17 and awful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 19:51:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18105305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: "He's seventeen. Cheadle has never hated anyone in the world as much as she hates seventeen-year-old genius Pariston Hill."in which Cheadle is a tired med student, Pariston has flawless grades and a penchant for emotional manipulation, Mizaistom is doing his best, and Ging is arriving this weekend.





	almost me, almost you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silverhedges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhedges/gifts).



> "The same kind of music haunts her bedroom  
> I'm almost me again, she's almost you  
> Be still, my foolish heart  
> Don't ruin this on me."
> 
> [almost (sweet music) - hozier]

Cheadle is woken up at the end of the class by a gentle hand on her shoulder.

 

She startles awake, heart pounding fast, head hurting. The Embryology teacher is looking at her with kind eyes, her pink bag already on her shoulder - the class is over, Cheadle realizes with the type of shocking realization that only comes with being startled out of bone-deep exhaustion.   

 

"I'm so sorry, professor," she stutters as she tries to regain some sort of composure, "I didn't mean to fall asleep, I -"

 

The teacher shakes her head and smiles softly. She's one of the warmest people Cheadle has ever met; she wears cute pink shirts that match her nail polish and talks about babies. She smells like vanilla and bids the students _good morning_ even when everyone is staring at her with dead eyes and exhaustion on their faces. "It's okay," she says. "I was a med student once, you know. I know what it's like to be that tired."

 

Cheadle threads her fingers through her hair. It's dirty and oily, and her brown roots are showing through the green hair dye. She needs a haircut and she needs to wash it properly, she knows, but she just - there's no _time_ , she always has _so much_ to do, so much it seems impossible most of the time, and when there _is_ time, all she wants to do is nap to try and work some sort of coherence back into her damaged sleep schedule.

 

She takes a deep breath. Her hands are shaking a bit. At some point, everything got incredibly overwhelming and she lost control of her life. "Still. I'm very sorry. It won't happen again."

 

"Don't worry, honey. Just make sure you get the notes from today's class - I think your classmate over there should have everything you need." her teacher beams at her once more before patting her head and gathering her stuff to leave. "Rest a bit. It's only your first year. Don't burn yourself out so early."

  


Cheadle nods. For a second, she feels like crying. She's tired enough that the smallest drop of kindness affects her more than it should. If Mizai were to hold her hand right now, she would probably burst into tears.

 

"We'll turn off the lights when we leave, professor!" a cheery, bright voice offers from somewhere behind Cheadle.

 

She turns to see Pariston Hill saluting her, his fingers to his forehead as if he's tipping an invisible hat, as if he's anything even slightly resembling a gentleman. He looks like he always does, no matter the hour of the day; perfect blonde hair, perfect smooth skin, perfectly-pressed gaudy suit as if he's the president of some important international association and not a seventeen-year-old college student. As if he has his life together, worth his weight in gold and pretty diamonds like the ones he wears on his earrings, looking every centimeter like his _flawless_ grades (so flawless they make Cheadle grit her teeth in frustration) would make one assume he does.

 

If it weren't for how empty his smile is and how terrifying his eyes are.

 

He's seventeen. Cheadle has never hated anyone in the world as much as she hates seventeen-year-old genius Pariston Hill.  

 

"Good afternoon, Cheadle!" he says, making his way through the empty chairs to get to hers. She can smell his golden expensive cologne from the other side of the classroom. Pariston looks and smells and talks like _money_ and _success_ and firm handshakes and back-stabbing, and she has no idea how he does that.

 

All she knows, based on common sense and her psychiatry readings and the Medical Psychology classes, is that there's something _very_ wrong with him, on a _very_ deep level. Maybe too deep to ever be fixed.

 

She nods in lieu of a proper greeting. She's too tired to deal with him right now. She's too tired to deal with anything. She just wants to go to Mizai's apartment and throw herself on his unfairly comfortable bed and watch stupid movies with him; cuddle and pretend everything's okay and she doesn't have over a hundred pages to read and two presentations to prepare for and three clinical cases to analyze and a Physiology class at 8 am the next morning.

 

Pariston stands beside her chair. He's too close, far too close - he has this uncanny ability to figure out just how far the exact boundaries of her personal space go and pushing them just enough to make her uncomfortable but not enough to justify her explicitly calling him out on it.

 

"You look so tired, Cheadle," he says, the corners of his lips turning downwards in a mocking pretense of caring. Pariston is able to turn every single one of his expressions of feeling into a mockery, a painful jab at her exhaustion, as if he feels more pity at her being such a disappointment than he ever felt for her declining well-being. "Is everything alright?"

 

She grits her teeth, straightens her back, pulls her messy hair back into a ponytail. "Alright enough, thank you, Pariston."

 

He shrugs on his backpack - black, fancy, with keychains clinking against each other and making the most irritating noise - and hugs his notebook - with its great notes and better personal commentaries - close to his chest. "Are you quite sure? I could just give you the notes, but I'm free if you need my help to catch up."

 

Cheadle's phone buzzes. It's a text from Mizai, asking her how she's feeling. She's been looking down lately, he says. Want to go out for coffee on Thursday?  


She has a test on Friday, but by _God_ does she want to go out for coffee with her best friend.

 

"That's very kind of you," she tells Pariston, and her mind almost breaks with the paradox of calling someone like him kind, but being a law school graduate taught her how to lie through her teeth and look nice while doing it, "but there's no need."

 

"It would be a pleasure to help you," he says.

 

His smile pulls wider almost like a reflex, sick and uncontrolled by his conscious mind. Cheadle feverishly thinks about how she could cut herself with the corner of his pretty lips.

 

She backtracks. She's not doing this right now. She's not giving the world any more opportunities to break her legs and smash her kneecaps, and she refuses to hand the metaphorical crowbar to a person like Pariston Hill.

 

"Really," she insists as she bends down to put her things inside her bag, "just the notes are great."

 

Cheadle can feel Pariston's psychotic gaze focusing on the patch of skin on her nape visible just above her collar. It's hungry and bloodthirsty and it sends shivers down her spine.

 

This brat. This awful, awful brat. She could kill him so easily. He's a Hunter like her and Mizai, she knows that much, but no one, sociopathic genius or otherwise, is strong enough to survive a single touch of her bare hand.

 

He lowers his head. It looks too much like condescension and not enough like politeness. "Very well. The offer stands. See you tomorrow in Physio?"

 

Cheadle puts her bag on her shoulder and turns her back on him. "Of course."  _It's not like I have a choice,_ she thinks bitterly. And this is only the first year.

 

Pariston's gaze follows her until she leaves the classroom.

  


**Author's Note:**

> jean stop making college aus for every single fandom you're in challenge: failed  
> also cheadle's experiences are taken from my current personal experience with med school
> 
> (not that this is an au per se, this is just my take on their backstory before the zodiacs and everything)


End file.
